In 1997, the extraordinary Argentine percussionist, Santiago Vazquez (of ?Sera una Noche? fame) put together an astounding group of musicians in order to collectively create their own unique and sophisticated, yet very accessible musical world. Santiago named the collective ?Puente Celeste? (Celestial Bridge in Spanish) and their music, heavenly influenced with pop, jazz and world music touchstones, has become one of my all time favorites! The present group, includes....

and of course, Santiago playing on percussion, tabla, mbira, as well as guitar and vocals on one track.

The project was recorded in early April 2010, over the course of three days, in the rather intimate sounding hall at Goethe Instituto Buenos Aires. Being rather small, the hall does not possess the deep acoustic that hardcore MA fans are used to and this recording is therefore, sonically very different from other MA albums recorded in larger, deeper sounding spaces. However, the sound on Nama is VERY immediate, as if the band is playing in your own room, assuming you don`t live in a large concert hall???.

The title, ?NAMA? was decided upon due to the sonic character of the record and the way it was minimally recorded (with MA`s two custom made microphones). Because the record possesses such an ?immediate? and ?raw? sonic presence, the group wanted to call the record ?Crudo? which means ?Raw? in Spanish. At the same time however, as the translation in English has a rather negative connotation (?Crude?), I suggested we use ?Nama?, the Japanese equivalent, which means both ?Raw? and ?Live? as well. ?Nama? certainly has a more exotic and positive feel, at least to non-Japanese?.

While the sound of ?Nama? is ?Raw?, I have no reservations in affirming that, to the contrary, Puente Celeste COOK! Incessently! The music is at once, beautiful, elegant, melodic, rhythmic and I must reiterate, COOKS like crazy! Even though it is RAW (not crude), I cannot recommend Puente Celeste`s music enough (!) and hope you will check it out soon. If not now, when??!!

All photo images for ?Nama? are by the great Argentine photographer (and fortunately, very enthusiastic MA fan!) Juan Hitters, whose photos are often seen on ECM, BIS and Naxos covers as well. Please check out his amazing website here: www.juanhitters.com

Finally, in case you are wondering, the album was recorded at the ultra high sampling rate of 5.6 MHz with MA`s newly acquired Korg MR-2000 DSD one bit master recorder. The usual pair of MA custom, DC powered mikes with 16mm DPA omnidirectional capsules was used, along with a 3 meter pair of Crystal Cable Ultra XLR cables. High Resolution mastering was done at 176.4 kilohertz with Samplitude Master software.